Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Sunday, June 20, 2010

This year's World Refugee Day on June 20 has as its theme, "Home," in recognition of the plight of more than 40 million uprooted people around the world. Around 10 million of them are refugees of special concern to UNHCR.

At UNHCR we help people find new homes and new futures through resettlement, through voluntary repatriation and through local integration. Most of the time, and where it's possible, refugees prefer to return to their home countries. Nonetheless, and with conflict continuing or escalating in many countries, finding new homes and allowing people to restart their lives is increasingly difficult.

This year, for World Refugee Day, we are planning events around the world to highlight the plight of refugees under our care and to advocate on their behalf for the help they need. We will be asking you to think about what it means to be one of those millions of individual human beings. And we will ask you to contribute in whatever way you can to helping them rebuild their lives.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Jose Saramago, who became the first Portuguese-language winner of the Nobel Literature prize although his popularity at home was dampened by his unflinching support for Communism, blunt manner and sometimes difficult prose style, died this Friday.

Saramago, 87, died at his home in Lanzarote, one of Spain's Canary Islands, of multi-organ failure after a long illness, the Jose Saramago Foundation said."The writer died in the company of his family, saying goodbye in a serene and placid way," the foundation said.

Saramago was an outspoken man who antagonized many, and moved to the Canary Islands after a public spat in 1992 with the Portuguese government, which he accused of censorship. His 1998 Nobel accolade was nonetheless widely cheered in his homeland after decades of the award eluding writers of a language used by some 170 million people around the world. "People used to say about me, 'He's good but he's a Communist.' Now they say, 'He's a Communist but he's good,'" he said in a 1998 interview with The Associated Press.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Nokia launched a new charging accessories for its mobile phones - one that uses by pedal power. The Nokia Bicycle Charger kit, which is targeted at emerging markets, generates electricity via a dynamo connected to a bike wheel, which is fed into a charger that can connected to a phone via the standard 2mm charging port. The kit also includes a holder to secure the phone to the bike; it will be available in selected retailers before the end of the year.

Nokia is targeting this accessory at emerging markets, where electricity supplies may be unreliable. Clearly there's also an environmental benefit as pedal power is a renewable energy source. The charger is part of Nokia's general push for 'green' solutions. They have already made significant changes to their standard chargers over the last few years to minimise the idle power draw, giving improved energy star ratings. A recent Greenpeace report ranked Nokia in first place in its survey of green electronics.

Monday, June 14, 2010

The latest in a 35-year-long run of BMW Art Cars was recently unveiled in Parisahead of its participation in next week's 24 hours of Le Mans. The M3 GT2 was painted by american artist Jeff Koons with a multicolored theme that should look pretty wild when photographed running down the Mulsanne straight after dark.

Koons first approached BMW about creating an art car in 2003, but the project finally came to fruition earlier this year. Over the last four months Koons has worked closely with the BMW Motorsports squad on the application of the graphics to ensure they didn't have any negative affect on the car's aerodynamics.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Tudong is a Sumatran word which is commonly translated/referred to as a veil or headscarf in English. In Malaysia the tudong is worn in accordance to Islam’s hijab. Usually, the tudong covers the hair while leaving the face exposed. It is part of the standard dress code for office work, school uniforms and formal occasions. In Indonesia a tudung is a form of jilbab that has a sewn-in curved visor.

The abaya "cloak" is long overgarment essentially a robe-like dress, worn by some women in parts of the Islamic World. Traditional abayat are black and may be either a large square of fabric draped from the shoulders or head or a long caftan. The abaya covers the whole body except the face, feet, and hands.

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It can be worn with the niqab, a face veil covering all but the eyes. Some women choose to wear long black gloves, so their hands are covered as well. It is considered an Arabic cultural dress integrated into the hijab, or Islamic dress, for many countries of the Arabian peninsula such as Saudi Arabia or United Arab Emirates, where it is the national dress.

Saudi Arabia requires women to cover in public. Covering is enforced by the religious police, the muttawwa. In Iran the cover is often referred to as a chador. In South Asia, it is known as a burqa. Outside the few Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, in nations with large Muslim populations, such as India, Indonesia, Iran and Turkey it is uncommon and considered undesirable Wahabist culture.

A burqais an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic traditions for the purpose of hiding a female's body when out in public. It is worn over the usual daily clothing (often a long dress or a shalwar kameez) and removed when the woman returns to the sanctuary of the household, out of the view of men that are not their husbands, fathers, brothers, uncles, sons and grandsons.

The burqa is usually understood to be the woman's loose body-covering, plus the head-covering (hijab), plus the face-veil (niqab). The face-veil portion is usually a rectangular piece of semi-transparent cloth whose top side is sewn to corresponding portion of the head-scarf, so that the veil hangs down loose from the scarf, and it can be turned up if the woman wishes to reveal her face (otherwise the whole face would be covered). In other cases, the niqāb part can be a side-attached cloth which covers the face below the eyes' region. The face-veil portion is also called purdah.

A chador is worn by many Iranian women in public spaces; A chador is a full-length semicircle of fabric open down the front, which is thrown over the head and held closed in front. It has no hand openings or closures but is held shut by the hands or by wrapping the ends around the waist. Historically in urban settings the face would be covered with a long rectangular white veil starting below the eyes. (The modern chador does not require this veil.) Chador is more commonly worn by Shia Muslims.

Indian Dupatta is adiaphanous veil, it is used as a covering for the brest, back, shoulders and head. The orhni is simply a length of cloth-printed, embroidered or plain, measuring two and a half to three down the back or wrapped around the shoulder. There are various modes of wearing the unsown orhni which is now more popularly known as the dupatta. When not draped over the head in the traditional style, it is usually worn with the middle portion of the dupatta resting on the chest like a garland with both ends thrown over each respective shoulder.

Among Christian churches which have a liturgical tradition, several different types of veils are used. These veils are often symbolically tied to the veils in the Tabernacle in the wilderness and in Solomon’s Temple. The purpose of these veils was not so much to obscure as to shield the most sacred things from the eyes of sinful men.

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